As some of you know I've been away working at Harrow during the Summer. I've been teaching English to kids, mostly Japanese kids.
One of my more popular lessons is getting them to write poems based on random series of images that I've taken from clip art or the internet. They results can be sensible or surreal. I've decided to share a few with you. (Aren't you lucky?)
You should keep in mind that this is work from the supposedly bottom level elementary group.

This first one definitely falls into the surreal category although it does make a kind of sense apart from the last line.
I'd like you imagine that you are Laurence Olivier or some other heavyweight thesp. and stand in front of your PC and declaim it in stentorian tones to the whole room.
Especially the last line.

Shinsuke is strange in the night
Beacuse he plays the guitar
And draws strange flowers
And a strange snake in front of the mirror.
But it became ten O'clock. Finish !
And his bell cried.
Then came his kangaroo.


by Shinsuke Oshima

I've never been able to understand how writing prose with short paragraphs turns it into poetry.

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
I've never been able to understand how writing prose with short paragraphs turns it into poetry.

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Which just about ensures that no actual Japanese poetry is in fact poetry at all by your definition. Haiku doesn't rhyme, nor Tankas. If you want to restrict it to English forms then most cinquains wouldn't form poetry.

But of course perhaps now you will produce a perfectly crafted haiku which rhymes - in Japanese - to prove me wrong.

Remember these were thirteen and fourteen year old kids, working in a second language in which they were in the beginners' group. Criticise all you like but until I can do work of the same standard in theirlanguage I'll just be content to be proud of them.

Quote "...Criticise all you like but until I can do work of the same standard in theirlanguage I'll just be content to be proud of them..."

I am not being critical I am simply using this thread to ask a question that I have asked many times before and to which I have never received a satisfactory answer.

If I write a passage, then divide it into short paragraphs of roughly equal length, how does that make it a poem?

And if I write a Limerick and set it out as a prose passage, dies that make it less of a poem?

We seemed to have had a similar discussion earlier about art. I have recently widened my horizons to poetry, partly because of this board. I now love Haiku, double dactyls, cinquains and limericks...all of which I had no real opinion of before. I think the more you read and learn about art, poetry, literature, music, the more you begin to appreciate other forms.

However, There is a limit. I haven't come to appreciate rap music yet...

Bob, I will say, though, that I had a hard time with that last line!

Richard's brought up a subject that's confused me for a long time too: when is a poem not a poem? I admit to complete ignorance here, as we only touched on poetry at A-level (and then we studied the works rather than considering what made them poems), and the only poetry I've done at degree level is French Renaissance poetry (which I only did because it was the Head of Department's pet subject so it was compulsory! I did manage to quote Aerosmith in one of the essays though ). So I'm pretty much an ignoramus on the general rules of poetry.

Some poems are easy to define due to rhyme, meter etc; others aren't - particularly free verse. I've seen some works whose only apparent claim to poetry is that the beginning of each line has been given a capital letter. I've also read some very poetic and beautiful prose. So what does distinguish poetry from prose? Is it simply the whim of the author? Could I, as Richard said, take a piece of prose and turn it into a poem simply by rearranging the layout? This really has plagued me for years, but I've always been too embarrassed to ask for fear of appearing stupid...

The King's New Clothes story is relevant in art and literature. It's a very good question and I've chewed it over from time to time regarding art (not yet to my satisfaction).

I vaguely remember reading some edifying comments on what makes poetry. I'll see if I can find them.

There are some useful comments in Poetry Free For All but you'll need to winnow out the chaff.

My views:

If we try to boil down the question to a binary decision (poetry / not poetry) rule, then we need to accept that we are placing an arbitrary mark on a continuous measurement scale, and it's not even a single dimensioned scale. In the following I'll refer to poetry as an additive, not as a class of writing.

When we communicate ideas in writing we use symbolism to encode meaning. Sometimes writing relies solely on the face value of words and their combination to create an intelligible message. I'd regard this as prose. When a writer relies more on the mental associations or connotations of words to make a message more meaningful, then the writing contains more "poetry" even if it is formatted as prose. Similarly, when adding line breaks to a message to highlight phrases or their relationships, or choosing wording based on word sounds, the writer is adding "poetry" to the message.

Adding line breaks doesn't make poetry, otherwise my email program could be said to turn my mail messages into poetic strophes of less-than-72-character lines. It is choosing the placement of line breaks that adds "poetry". Adding rhyme and regular meter doesn't in itself add poetry, it makes verse. I consider myself a versifier more than a poet.

How much "poetry" must be added before we say that some text is poetry? How many poetic devices must be used effectively to write good poetry?

When the words and their connotations, the juxtaposition of ideas, the sounds of the words and the form of the text on the page all serve to support the communication of a message (both intellectually and emotionally), then you have a good poem. There is a continuum between bland prose and good poetry. Choose your own cutoff point.

quote:

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Originally posted by Virge:
Choose your own cutoff point.

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I agree with all of virge's remarks except this last one which gives me some trouble. I don't believe it's possible to choose ANY arbitrary cut off point because straight away that's flipping you back into a binary mode of thinking - to the left it is, to the right it ain't.
I will post further remarks on the subject in another thread but for now I'm returning this one to its original intent.
This poem was by one of the Japanese girls. Many Japanese students have problems with articles and this one is no exception. I haven't corrected a thing in the poem so some of the lines look as if they need "a"s or "the"s adding.

Hope
by
Sayuri Shirai

The plane is flying.
The witch is flying.
The ladybird is flying.
But human being doesn't fly.
Human beings live in castles.
Computers, TV, food and everything in castles.
But human beings hope to fly.


Incidentally I taught the lesson and I say it's poetry. You are of course all entitled to your own opinions.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I think I'll do a second one by Sayuri now.

Painter
by
Sayuri Shirai

Painter is painting in London.
He always wears a hat and big pocket clothes.
He writes a very beautiful flower.
But everyone looks at his picture, laughing.
He is very sad.
The bell rings
And he is angry a long time.



Note her rather more creative use of the kangaroo image (big pocket clothes) than Shinsuke's.

Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Virge. My (slightly) longer post is on the other thread.